Ravi Shankar Biography In English Life Story1920-2012

• Ravi Shankar, sometimes written as Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury; was an Indian sitar player and composer.
• A sitar virtuoso, he became the world’s best-known export of North Indian classical music in the late 20th century, and influenced many composers in India and around the world. Shankar was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, in 1999.

Ravi Shankar Biography In English

Birth Details –

Place – Banaras

Date of Birth – 7 April 1920

Marital Status – Married

Nationality-Indian

Family –

Father- Shyam Shankar Chowdhary

Brothers – Uday, Rajendra, Debendra and Bhupendra.

Wife – Annapurna Devi, Sukanya Rajan

Son- Shubhendra Shankar

Daughters- Norah Jones, Anoushka Shankar

Education – High School

Early Life

• Shankar was born on 7 April 1920 in Banaras, then the capital of the famous princely state, in a Bengali family, the youngest of seven brothers.
• His father, Shyam Shankar Chowdhury, was a Middle Temple barrister and scholar, originally from Jessore district, East Bengal.
• A respected politician, lawyer and statesman, he served for many years as Diwan of Jhalawar, Rajasthan, and used the Sanskrit spelling of the family name and dropped the last part of it.
• Shankar had five siblings: Uday, Rajendra, Debendra and Bhupendra. Shankar studied at Bengalitola High School in Banaras between 1928 and 1928.
• At the age of 10, after spending his first decade in Banaras, Shankar went to Paris with his brother, choreographer Uday Shankar’s dance group.
• By the age of 13 he had become a member of the group, went on tour with its members and learned to dance and play various Indian instruments.
• Uday’s dance group traveled to Europe and the United States in the mid-1930s, and Shankar learned French, discovered Western classical music, jazz, cinema, and became familiar with Western customs.
• Shankar was trained sporadically by Khan on tour, and Khan offered to train Shankar to become a serious musician on the condition that he leave the tour and come back to Maihar.

Personal Life And Family

• Shankar married Annapurna Devi, daughter of Alauddin Khan in 1941 and their son Shubhendra Shankar was born in 1942. He separated from Devi during 1962 and continued a relationship with Kamala Shastri, a dancer, which began in the late 1940s.
• An affair with Sue Jones, a New York concert producer, led to the birth of Norah Jones in 1979. He parted ways with Shastri in 1981 and stayed with Jones till 1986.
• He also married in 1978 and had a relationship with tanpura maestro Sukanya Rajan, whom he had known since 1972, which led to the birth of their daughter Anoushka Shankar in 1981. In 1989, he married Sukanya Rajan at the Chilkur Temple in Hyderabad.
• Shankar’s son, Shubendra “Shubho” Shankar often accompanied him on tours. He could play sitar and surbahar, but decided not to pursue a solo career. Shubhendra died of pneumonia in 1992.
• His daughter Anoushka Shankar was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2003 for Best World Music Album.
• Both Anushka and her father were nominated for Best World Music Album at the 2013 Grammy Awards for separate albums.

Career

Training and work in India

• By the time Shankar returned from his tour of Europe, his parents had died, and travel to the West was made difficult due to the political conflicts that would lead to World War II.
• Shankar gave up his dance career in 1938 to move to Maihar and study Indian classical music as Khan’s disciple while living with his family in the traditional Gurukul system.
• Khan was a strict teacher and Shankar trained in the sitar and surbahar, learned the raga and music styles dhrupad, dhamar and khayal, and was taught the techniques of the rudra veena, rubab and sursingar.
• He often studied with Khan’s children Ali Akbar Khan and Annapurna Devi.
• Shankar began performing publicly on the sitar in December 1939 and his first performance was a jugalbandi (duet) with Ali Akbar Khan, who played the string instrument sarod.
• Shankar completed his training in 1944. He moved to Mumbai and joined the Indian People’s Theater Association, for which he composed music for ballets in 1945 and 1946.
• Shankar composed the music for the popular song “Saare Jahan Se Accha” at the age of 25.

1956–1969: International Exposure

• AIR Delhi Director V.K. Narayan Menon introduced the western violinist Yehudi Menon to Shankar during Menuhin’s first visit to India in 1952.
• Shankar performed as part of a cultural delegation to the Soviet Union in 1954, and Menuhin invited Shankar to perform in New York City in 1955 for a showcase of Indian classical music sponsored by the Ford Foundation.
• Shankar heard of the positive response Khan received and resigned from Akashvani in 1956 to tour the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States.
• In 1958, Shankar participated in the 10th anniversary celebrations of the United Nations and UNESCO Music Festival in Paris.
• From 1961, he toured Europe, the United States and Australia and became the first Indian to compose music for non-Indian films.
• Shankar established the Kinnara School of Music in 1962 in Mumbai.
• Shankar won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance for West Meets East in collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin
• He opened a western branch of the Kinara School of Music in Los Angeles in May 1967 and published an autobiography, My Music, My Life, in 1968. In 1968, he composed the music for the film Charlie.

1970–2012: International Performance

• In October 1970, after teaching at the City College of New York, the University of California, Los Angeles, and being a visiting lecturer at other colleges and universities, Shankar became chair of the Indian Music Department at the California Institute of the Arts.
• The concerto for sitar and orchestra was performed with André Previn as conductor and Shankar playing the sitar.
• Shankar performed at the Concert for Bangladesh held at Madison Square Garden in New York in August 1971.
• In November and December 1974, Shankar co-headlined a North American tour with George Harrison.
• Shankar was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score for his work in the 1982 film Gandhi.

Style And Contribution

• Shankara developed a style different from that of his contemporaries and incorporated influences from the tala practices of Carnatic music.
• Shankar is considered one of the top sitar players of the late 20th century. He popularized the performance on the bass octave of the sitar for the alap section and is known for a distinctive playing style in the middle and high registers, which uses quick and short deviations of the playing chords and stops and strikes on the main playing. creates their sound through the medium.
• Shankar introduced at least 31 new ragas, including Nata Bhairav, Ahir Lalit, Rasiya, Yaman Manjh, Gunji Kanhara, Janasanamodini, Tilak Shyam, Bairagi, Mohan Kaus, Manmanjari, Mishra Gara, Pancham Se Gara.
• In a concert released in 2012, Shankar introduced a new percussion sitar technique called Gunga Sitar, whereby the strings are covered with cloth.

Awards-

• Bharat Ratna
• Padma Vibhushan
• Padma Bhushan
• Sangeet Natak Akademi Award
• Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship
• Kalidas Samman

Other Government and Academic Honors

• Ramon Magsaysay Award
• Honorary Degrees
• Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• Arts Award
• UNESCO International Music Council
• Fukuoka Asian Culture Award
• Polar Music Awards
• Five Grammy Awards

Other Information –

Date of Death – 11 December 2012

Place – San Diego, California, US

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